Late to the party, Plain Dealer tells sad but true tale about John Kasich's poor job's record

For reporters and others who follow analysis of Ohio's job numbers by Cleveland's preeminent analyst and number cruncher George Zeller, the sad but true tale told Tuesday by the Cleveland Plain Dealer on just how poorly Gov. John Kasich's record has been over two terms comes as no surprise to those of us who peer through the haze of public relations to see the gritty world that lies beneath.

The Rotunda of the Ohio
Statehouse

Zeller, who each month issues his digestion of government data on all aspects of job creation or job loss, has long documented Ohio's failure to even break even with national job figures.

At the same time, reporters for the state's Big Eight legacy newspapers have offered worthless analysis of the numbers by focusing on the unemployment rate, which is impacted by other factors. It then takes Kasich's comments at face value, without ever challenging the public relations statements by Team Kasich that sound rosy but masks the sub-par performance by a governor who promised to be a jobs governor.

Plain Dealer Falls Short On Analysis

As recently as last week, Zeller notes that "Ohio Extends Sub-Par Job Growth Streak to 65 Consecutive Months." Only two Ohio news sources dared carry a article based on the monthly jobs data. This reporter, on the other hand, has a proven record of following and writing about Zeller's monthly work, the results of which should be among the top issues this year's candidates for governor should be forced to address in detail beyond delivering platitudes about how "friendly" Ohio is to job creators.

To quote Zeller, "Ohio extended its lengthy sub-par job growth streak to 65 consecutive months with Ohio's job growth below the USA national average. The April 2017 year over year Ohio job growth rate is 0.92%, while the USA job growth rate during the same period is 1.55%. This horrible sub-par job growth streak in Ohio has now been every month for five full years and five additional months."

The PD's jobs article, "Ranking Ohio governors for jobs: John Kasich's current term is a lot like Ted Strickland's record vs. the U.S.," starts out this way: "When it comes to Ohio's jobs count in comparison to national trends, Gov. John Kasich's current term is a lot like the four years under his predecessor, Ted Strickland."

That's high irony for a shrinking paper that portrayed former one-term Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland as the slow, plodding but dependable hare compared to the flash and flimflam of Kasich the rabbit who has yet to cross the finish line ahead of anybody.

Ohio media treat Strickland and Kasich as if all things economic were equal during their respective tenure as state CEO. The facts tell a far different story, however, because Strickland's one term coincided with the second worst economic meltdown since the Great Depression of the 1930s. By contrast, Kasich inherited a recovering economy from Strickland's astute budgeting, then stalled the recovery even though the nation was advancing to recovery.

Kasich bashed Strickland for loosing hundreds of thousands of jobs, as if the Ohio economy was humming along with nothing to worry about. Kasich accused Strickland of being incompetent, when a case for the reverse can reasonably be made. Kasich took control with a national recovery underway, then proceeded to under-perform the national average for the last 65 months.

When he's a guest on national TV talk shows who feature him because they think he'll be a challenger to President Trump in 2020, Kasich's cheery chestnuts are three-fold: 1) He balanced the state budget, a duty all governors including Strickland have done; 2) He socked about $2 billion into the state's emergency fund, money he essentially stole from local governments and schools; and 3) He's created one-half million jobs, a figure that sounds impressive until articles like today's PD piece come along to deflate that big, false, fat balloon.

PD author Rich Exner writes about Kasich's policies and promises by again re-running Kasich's bogus claims of job creation. He first cites Kasich's tax changes over the years - "decreases in state income tax rates and elimination of income taxes for most self-employed people, coupled with increases in the sales taxes and property taxes for senior citizens."

"Kasich signs bold state budget to further Ohio's Comeback," Exner posts, about a headline from Kasich's office when he signed the state budget in 2013. The release, Exner notes, predicted the changes will help "fuel our economic recovery and get people back to work." After passage of the Ohio budget in 2015, Team Kasich said this: "The result is an economic climate friendly to job creators for future prosperity that helps more Ohioans participate in our state's economic revival."

In a summary of Kasich's first and second term, which end when 2019 arrives, it's all too clear how poorly Kasich has performed on the job front. Other analysis reveals that a majority of the jobs Kasich crows about creating are minimum wage jobs, not the high-paying ones he promised when running in 2010.

With nothing but informed speculation, this reporter has already forecasts that Ohio won't win Amazon's HQ2 headquarters, for reasons that go beyond just economics to right-wing, repressive social engineering laws that in many case are directed at women and the obstacle court to their health care Kasich has signed into law on over a dozen times.

Zeller, the jobs cruncher, says what he's said before about Ohio needing to do better: "The new data once again point out the vital importance of speeding up Ohio's rate of recovery. It will be more difficult to do that next month in the May data, since large mass layoffs at the General Motors Lordstown assembly plant have already been announced, but which are not yet measured in the new April 2018 data for either Lordstown or its suppliers."

In related news, Zeller also looks at county sales tax data. When he looks at The Cuyahoga County sales tax data, as he did last week, he found was both depressing and a reflection of how weak Kasich has been in bringing prosperity to a once great state whose population growth is moribund and whose future is full of worry, made worse by Ohio's battle with opioids.

Zeller notes "The 12 month real moving average of the Cuyahoga County sales tax data in May 2018 is down -9.40% in comparison to May 2017. May 2018 is the eleventh consecutive month when the real 12 month moving average has been negative in Cuyahoga County."

He says the peak of the 12 month real moving average continues to be February 2001 in Cuyahoga County seventeen years ago. Comparing the February 2001 figure to the current May 2018 figure we see a monthly decline of $2,204,218. Annualized, that is a decline of $27,170,614 on an annual basis. That of course is $27.2 million that is badly needed, but which has not been collected."

The PD has chosen not to run an article on the decline of the Cuyahoga County sales tax, which Zeller notes "has now been negative during every month between July 2018 and May 2018, accounting for the current streak of 22 consecutive months with a decline in the Cuyahoga County sales tax."

When John Kasich says he can do for the nation what he's done for Ohio, caveat emptor (i.e. buyer beware). While Kasich spends more time out of state trying to float his boat for a third presidential run in 2020, voters in Ohio and TV pundits in New York and Washington will fail in their duties to inform their viewers and readers if they don't understand that Kasich's public relations far out distances his real out put.

Zeller Explains What PD Doesn't

A criticism Zeller has of Exner's analysis is points to the silence about why these long term patterns are so weak. "He establishes that Ohio's growth is weak over long periods of time, but he does not explain why," Zeller told me today via email when asked to comment on the PD piece.

Zeller takes time to explain the numbers. "The key factor, of course, is weakness in Manufacturing and also cuts in Government. The cuts in Government are harmful. That is the key point that everybody needs to understand. But, there is great resistance in the press to pointing this out, mainly for ideological reasons and not data reasons. Even today, the legislature and the Congress are considering additional Austerity cuts to Government. They don't clam that this will slow the economy down, but that is what it does."

The old saying, "an ounce of promotion equals a pound of production," applies nowhere more than it does in Ohio.